The Sniff-Proof-ness of Disloyalties

Dogs, I believe, are like women in that if you play, in their absence, with another of their kind, one sniff and they’ll know you’ve been infidel.

What they decide to do once they’ve learnt of the betrayal, cannot be said:

• They may choose to ignore it.
• They may not choose to ignore it, but still do.
• They may bark at you and THEN ignore it.
• They may bark at you and THEN ignore you.

All I’m trying to say is this- disloyalties can never be sniff-proof.

Cactus

She wore her red lipstick,
that particular day.
She walked in with a cactus,
that particular day.

Nothing remarkable had happened just then,
nothing remarkable at all;
it's a wonder how I remember so well,
the nothingness of it all.

This Week

This week has been quite an eventful one:

• I wrote a poem on that one topic on which I've wanted to write for a while now.

• I learnt that I can get back home, a hot Starbucks with whipped cream and the cream would not have melted.

• Hugo learnt the 'stay' command.

• I got a call from this really big firm, saying I could start interning there, the next day onward.

I like to evaluate, from time to time, where I stand in comparison to my desolate, ill days not very long ago. More often than not, the results of this evaluation leave me with a raging fit (which, I believe is an absolute entitlement of the once hospitalized). But then, there also come along weeks like this, with an assurance that the wait for a prettier horizon is not a long one.

Or, simply put, just like my darling Hugo, the happy days are about to learn the 'stay' command!

Fortitude

A broken bird, she came to me
gasping for the world that had betrayed her,
for a sky that never had room for her.

Her eyes twitched when I thought they wouldn’t;
they had me convinced that
her wings would follow suit, but they didn’t.
Perhaps they couldn’t.

The brains told me that her case was lost,
that she had gone like the many before her
to the land of the black waterfalls;
I told them that long before had she
visited this dreadful place, and liked it too,
for she is a wanderer and she had been wandering.

No, she did not test the waters like
the many before her;
she trusted them instead.
The impressed current which either swallows or blesses
did what it had not done to the many before her.
Back home, wriggling herself dry
she saw a plant near by suddenly grow
with astonishing poise and pace.

Gone now she was, to this same place,
her mind, and not her wings, helping her to soar.
She would be let to return once more,
unlike the many before her,
who could not be her and she, them.

And I was right for here she is come now,

with strength new and a purpose too.
She tells me that she heard the songs that I
sung as a last resort.
She tells me she will give me, and only me,
an account of the universe she has just been to.

With dignity, she props herself up;
soon she will fly back
to the same sky that never had room for her.
And I will be left, a woman wiser for
she taught me things and I saw for myself why
she was called Fortitude.

Yesterday's Whoopsies

My goof ups from yesterday are insignificant and I would have probably forgotten all about them had I not decided to blog about them later. Having taken place at two different times of the day, what is similar about both of these 'whoopsies' is that each left me with a giggle minutes after it happened. So, I was that girl on the train and that girl in the general store who smiles to herself!

***

In the morning, I offered to carry the bags of a random old lady on the road who was walking, with much effort, in the same direction as me. Post the small talk about the weather and her arthritis, she randomly asked me my caste. Never having been asked this before (the only other time being in print, on form filling days), I was taken aback.

Something told me that no matter what I said my caste was, it wasn't going to make the woman happy. I didn't know if she would like it that I don't belong to a 'backward class', or if she would hate me for having an, let's just say, affluent bloodline. I was so scared of disappointing this nosy stranger, that I told her I didn't know what caste I belonged to.

From the scowl on her forehead I knew that I had managed to anger her nonetheless!

***

I love my father. But yesterday evening I thanked God my father and me don't share a relationship where I'd want to surprise him with a hug from the back every so often. Why? Because my eyesight isn't spectacular!

From about twenty feet away, I thought a neighbour, standing in the dark corners of our residential complex, was my father! When about four seconds later I realised it wasn't him, I was a little more than relieved that my impulses hadn't been very 'daddy's-little-girl'!

So there it was, an almost-blunder, my second whoopsie moment of the day. And then, luckily, the curtains dropped on the day.

Here's to Change!

How's today different from yesterday? Well, since yesterday, the following things have changed: my dog's collar belt and a few relationship statuses on Facebook. The reason for this is the changed calender. 2014, the year of the water snake, does not hold much meaning for me personally. It's just another year that I have convinced myself I should sail through.

Losing weight as a resolution is a given, and I don't even consider it as being a resolution any more. It is as if I didn't have any resolution at all this year. I believe that there are only two types of people who don't have resolutions. The first type comprises those who are so comfortable and content in their present state of being, that they don't see the need for a change in their lifestyle. The second type of people are those who have given up on life as a whole. They believe that no change, big or small, is going to alter their current or eventual circumstance. Somewhere between the worlds of these two categories of humans is the kingdom that I call home.

I didn't do anything special today. I did, as always, one good, one bad, and one stupid thing. But during the course of the day, if there's one thing that I realized, it is that whether you like it or not, change is inevitable. You are going to meet new people, and they are going to teach you new things. New ways of living. You're going to make new decisions.

The point of this blog post, finally, is that no matter how aloof one is from the midnight celebrations, or how little they acknowledge the crisp new calender on their work desk, the truth is that in the coming 365 days, the world is going to change. And so are you.